Improvement in tanning



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JOHN E. PARK, OF SEGUIN, TEXAS.

IMPROVEMENT IN TANNING.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent'No. 51,407, dated December 5, 1865.

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, JOHN E. PARK, of Seguin, in the'county of Guadalupe and State of Texas, have discovered an Improvement in Tanning; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description thereof.

The nature of my invention and improveinent consists in the discovery and procuring of wood. The body of the tree and large limbs are reduced by acircular saw to sawdust. The saw,makin g transverse sections and being made very open, reduces the wood rapidly to small chips or sawdust. The smaller branches are reduced to chips by two knives placed on the periphery of a cast-iron wheel making a circular plane. These give ample material for the filling of two vats per day. The wood must be seasoned before it is used. This may be done either before or after chipping. The wood chips as easily when dried as when fresh cut. The best time of the year to cut the timber is from August to February, the astringent matter being most abundant before the sap rises. When the chipped material has been thus obtained, and either dried or obtained from wood dried previous to its being chipped, it is ready for use; and to secure uniform and rapid combination between the tanning-matter of this material and the skins, 1 place the chips or sawdust in a wooden vat or boiler having a copper bottom and place this boiler over afurmace and boil about six hours, when the liquor is fully ready for use. Apack of fifty sides or more, prepared in the ordinary way, are now stratified with fresh or unboiled materialsay three packs to the side-and covered with boiled liquor, prepared as above described, and cooled before use.

The length of time required to make good leather with this material depends upon the strength of the liquor. If the boiler is entirely filled with the chipped wood and the chips merely covered, a liquor will be obtained that will tan all light leather in twenty days at two courses. This strength will finish calfskins in five days without any detriment to the grain. To tan sole-leather thoroughly with this grade of liquor requires fourmonths and four courses. I orall lightleather two courses and two months isampletime. Forheavyharness-leatherthree courses and two and a half to three months is full time. 7 Then I propose no change in the preparation of skins for tanning, but an improvement in the finding or discovery of tanning material in localities and conditions not known heretofore to exist. and in a section of country where scarcely any ofthe ordinary tanning substances are to be found at all, while ofthis growth there is thegreatest abundance, and the same may and can be applied to the manufacture ofleather in all mesquit regions as economically as leather can be made in the most abundant bark regions.

\Vhile specifying the mesquit wood as one which 1 have used successfully and on an ex-* tensive scale, I do not wish to be understood as restricting myself thereto. The wood of the live-oak and that of the chestnut may be used in the same manner with good effect.

What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is I The tanning material and extractive matter of the mesquit-wood, live-oak, or chestnut applied to the tanning of leather, prepared in the manner described, for the purpose specified.

JOHN E. PARK.

Witnesses:

ALEXR. A. O. KLAUCKE, W. F. HALL. 

